New beginnings
by love-fool
Summary: She's heard the gossip surround him, however, a background Degrassi girl manages to learn about herself and another character's true colors. A Songfic


[Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi: The Next Generation or Switchfoot's "Learning to Breath".]

[A/N: Hey kids, ready for an untraditional coupling? Well, I bet you are. So yes, please keep an open mind when you read this because the coupling is rather untraditional in the aspect that the chances of it happening on the series are rather slim. So yes, enjoy and what not.]

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Hello, good morning, how you do?  
What makes your rising sun so new?  
I could use a fresh beginning too  
All of my regrets are nothing new_

I stepped out onto the back porch with a can of root beer handy along with the sounds of Japanese pop music playing softly through my headphones. The brisk summer wind blew against my bare arms as I was met with vivid sunshine. I was in a particularly content mood with it being the beginning of summer and the ending of school was only a few days ago. Final exams had been a doozy to say the least, but everything malign had ended and there was a fresh new beginning.

Nadia had gone on vacation with her family and I assumed that Toby and Liberty were busy with miscellaneous things. Well, or so I thought considering none of them had called me yet. I was surprised that Toby hadn't, him being the clingy boyfriend type and what not. It wasn't that I didn't care for Toby, he was sweet. However, his sweetness was equal to that of sixteen pounds of confectionary sugar. You know that the sugariness would dance across your tongue as if it was a stage, but you would get oh so many cavities because of it. Maybe some time away from each other was something we both needed. God, I'm reminding myself of my mom when she got separated from dad last year. Let's just say their idea wasn't too keen, if you know what I'm saying.

"Kendra, did you take the last root beer," I heard a voice above my music. It was probably Spinner, well, of course it was Spinner. I took my headphones off and they fell down onto my shoulders which had sunlight walking across them.

"Possibly," I answered vaguely. "I'm not sure if mom bought a twelve or a twenty four pack of them, if so, there's more in the pantry, they're just not cold."

He groaned, "Oh man."

"Well, you could always pour the root beer into a glass and put ice in it," I informed him. "And the ice would be in the freezer, of course." Leave it to Spinner to be rather lethargic. Not that I could blame him though, the lazy days of summer can be like a disease even to the productive people in the world. Well, I'm not saying that I'm entirely productive, but I did want to sign up for the floor hockey at the local youth center.

"Dude, I told you Craig was coming over today," He replied. Wait a minute, did he say Craig? He did not just say Craig. He did not just say Craig. Get a hold of yourself, Kendra. Just, get a hold of yourself. "He totally like worships root beer."

"Craig's coming over," I asked with a raised eyebrow as if to reinforce the fact he was coming over.

Craig's visits to our house were becoming more and more frequent. Soon, he'd be making as many guest appearances as Paige did. With the frequency of Craig's visits started to climb to an all time high, the more I became intrigued with him. At first it was this game with me, to see if the idle chatting and gossiping of the eighth graders about Craig was true. There were so many rumors about him that it was incredibly easy to talk to one of your fellow classmates who you never talked to ever on the subject of Craig Manning. I remember this story about him being quite the Casanova over in Bardell High and that he got some grade nine girl over there pregnant with twins. It made me laugh at first, at how some people could be so completely bored that they thought of ridiculous tales. It always bothered me, about how people had the tendency to lie to one another. I think that's how my sympathy towards Craig steadily progressed into an intrigue and then into some kind of school girl crush.

At first, it felt entirely cliché. I mean, there are so many sitcom plots involving a little sister getting a crush on her older brother's closest friends. Often in those shows, the older brother would find out and laugh at the little sister. However, because of Spinner's over protectiveness of me, he would probably build some kind of barrier so that I couldn't interact with him. He was well aware of the events that unfolded; I mean he had even _encouraged _them. Even though Spinner is my brother and I love him, he's not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. I mean, he got grounded for staining our antique couch with cheese whiz.

_So this is the way that I say I need You  
This is the way that I'm_

Spinner left, so I returned to my music and sang along to it while sipping on the root beer that Spinner had wanted to reserve for Craig. I think if they want their root beer so badly, then they can go get it at the convenience store down the block. Wow, that sounded incredibly bratty, but on one hand it is very true.

I sat contently with the root beer as I watched the summer day creep by me. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. It was kind of what happened during the few lazy days of summer. You were just so exhausted from the tiring school year that you just sat back the first few days, dreaming of what you wanted to do for the summer. However, there are the occasional few people who take advantage of every single day that summer throws their way.

_Learning to breathe  
I'm learning to crawl  
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall  
I'm living again, awake and alive  
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies_

"Dudes, I need to show you this insane thing I can do with two cans of spray cheese," Spinner hollered loud enough for me to hear above my music. I pivoted my head over to glance through the screen door and saw Craig among the spectators of Spinner's oh so wonderful feat. With that, I took a last sip of my root beer before pushing the can aside. Obviously they were staying inside today in the air conditioning while I was basking in the sun. Oh well, if you can't handle the heat, then stay in the nice expensive air conditioning that does wonders for the electric bill.

_Hello, good morning, how you been?  
Yesterday left my head kicked in  
I never, never thought that  
I would fall like that  
Never knew that I could hurt this bad_

The next day I was greeted with the sounds of hollering and other sounds that were obviously coming from Spinner and his friends. It was weird, I was never annoyed with any of them and they never seemed to be annoyed with me anyway. The roots of conflict were imbedded in Spinner and me though. It wasn't like we argued about incredibly ridiculous things. It was the opposite, and it bothered me at times. Maybe it was just me craving for some psuedo-normalcy, like fighting over silly things such as bathroom time and what not.

I wiped the remnants of urges for more sleep from my eyes before crawling out of my bed. I could sense that today was going to be another lazy day, and I was pretty content with that. However, Spinner and his friends seemed to be getting in the way of that at the moment. But I wouldn't let them be fun suckers for me and I wouldn't whine and carry on about them not being quiet. We would just go our own separate ways, well separate enough anyway that we were in the same house.

My feet led me down the stairs which led to the living room that was currently holding a party of four. I was pretty sure that it was around noon time, considering Spinner wouldn't be caught dead sleeping in earlier than nine o'clock but he would often be up before noon.

As the sounds of chaos continued on as I walked into the kitchen to fix myself a blueberry toaster strudel. Hopefully Spinner and his comrades hadn't engulfed every last morsel of them. If they did, I could just go down to the grocery store and get another box of them. Oh, and maybe stop at the ice cream stand for a vanilla cone.

_Learning to breathe  
I'm learning to crawl  
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall  
I'm living again, awake and alive  
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies_

"Kendra," I heard my voice as I started searching through the freezer. And there was Craig, standing in the doorway. I didn't really know what to do considering the guy I was immensely intrigued by was standing ten feet away from me in my kitchen. "Where do you keep the cups?"

"In the cabinet," I informed him while still searching for the toaster strudels, if they were even still existent in our house, that is. "I don't get why Spinner shouldn't be playing maid to you guys, you are his guests after all. It only makes sense."

Craig laughed lightly, "Well, I think he's a bit queasy after his whole cheese whiz stunt last night. Anyway, it's just for me though. I think Marco is either dead or a really heavy sleeper and Jimmy's in the bathroom. So, you do have orange juice, right?"

I rolled my eyes, "This isn't some diner, Craig. Get your own orange juice; you can help yourself to the fridge."

He leaned against the counter before running his hand through his tousled hair. I never really was attentive towards how guys looked. Their personalities attracted me to them rather than their exterior looks. However, Craig did have that whole bed head look down pat. At the moment, it amused me.

"What about that whole guest policy," He asked with a slight smirk.

"Your _Spinner's_ guest," I pointed out before handing him the plain white carton that was taken out of its home. "Here, it's on the house though." I had this way of extending the whole little sister act out towards Spinner's friends. However, I was pretty sure that I didn't annoy them like there was no tomorrow.

"Such generosity after such a crappy year," He sighed while the orange juice collected in his cup and pushed against the walls of it like a raging sea. "Oh well, can't go back and fix what I already did, y'know?"

People make such bad choices and they don't know their horridness until the consequence is right in front of their eyes. I was pretty sure that Craig's initial intentions weren't to hurt either of the girls he was juggling, but his own selfish desires got in the way. Eh, it was human nature though, putting your own needs in front of others. Even though what he had done was completely and utterly horrible, you had to sympathize to even the smallest degree.

_So this is the way I say I need You  
This is the way that I say I love You  
This is the way that I say I'm Yours  
This is the way, this is the way_

"Hey, time heals all wounds though," I offered with a shrug. "I mean, I'm sure everyone will be wrapped up into what happened with Heather Sinclair's failure of a nose job or something. It'll all blow over, though I'm no expert."

"I guess you're probably right," He sighed before a smile crawled up his face. "Thanks, for that and for the orange juice."

"No problem," I smiled slightly as he left with his orange juice and placed the carton back into the fridge.

It felt nice, trying to give someone a bit of comfort and having them actually accept it. I just wish there could have been something more than orange juice and hope that morning. Hey, you take what you can though.

_Learning to breathe  
I'm learning to crawl  
I'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall  
I'm living again, awake and alive  
I'm dying to breathe in these abundant skies_


End file.
